Ok, so no one is probably robbing my bank account. But damn, it sure feels like someone is.
Since Hubby and I are now trying to live within a pretty small budget, I've decided to try cutting back my grocery shopping to twice a month. Although I wasn't planning on buying groceries this week (I had plenty of everything to get through, no problem), it turned out my supermarket was having a pretty big sale on lots of shelf-stable foods that I like to have on hand (soup, jam, ramen noodles, etc.). So I bit the bullet and went on a "stock up" trip since my pantry is pretty much empty.
I spent about $200, and got maybe a week's worth of food for my family. Seriously. That's insane.
It's true that I shop at probably the most expensive store in town. For one thing, they double coupons. For another, they have a wide variety of organic foods. I don't buy everything organic (can't afford it), but I do buy many organic things and try to mix them in with regular foods. (For example, if I make chili, I'll use one can of organic tomatoes and one can of conventional tomatoes. I figure this at least helps reduce my family's exposure to pesticides a little bit.)
I'm not sure what I can do to cut my grocery bill. But I'm going to have to come up with a solution fast. Otherwise, if grocery prices continue to rise, we're only going to be able to afford enough to feed my family on a week by week basis, rather than adding anything to our food storage.
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3 comments:
Examine how much you're spending on your organic foods: look to the Dirty Dozen/Clean 15 and concentrate spending your food dollars on those organics instead of foods that generally aren't considered 'dirty'.
http://beautyandbedlam.com/organic-foodsthe-dirty-dozen-vs-the-clean-fifteen/
I hate to tell you that canned tomatoes are a bad idea. All canned food isn't good cause of the bpa in the lining, but tomatoes are the worst cause they're acidic and more bpa leeches into the food than with other canned items :(. I figured you might care to know.
We spend about $250 a week which I also think is absolutely insane. It was very expensive to shop downtown in the small boutique-type markets. Now that we have a car and are in the burbs (still not Ina house yet :( in a hotel right now :( ) I plan on buying a lot fromthe cheaper grocery stores, the same exact stuff I'd buy in the more expensive stores but for much cheaper. But the cheap stores hardly have any organic stuff, so for that I'll go to the better stores. Also cutting out as much readymade stuff as possible which is tough since you know how hard it is to cookmeals from scratch with a toddler and a baby ...
All the best.
How big is your family, at 200 per week that is a thousand per month and that is alot of money for food.
On average I spend about 100 per month on store bought food, and that includes my preps, the rest comes from the farm itself in terms of eggs, milk, garden, fruits and wild crops etc.
I do understand that most folks can't get that low if they are off-farm but if you are typically shopping for organic in some things, then trying to make contacts with the local farmers would give you more bang for your buck then the local store will.
Wishing you best of luck and will be be popping in to see how things are going, I need to read down to learn more about you and your world :)
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